Pakistan- the Balochistan Conundrum

by Tilak Devasher

  More recently, almost all Baloch groups supported the suicide attack on the bus carrying Chinese workers at Dalbandin, mentioned in an earlier chapter. Likewise, a joint action by three Baloch groups was carried out on a Frontier Corps camp. Finally, Baloch probably realize that they cannot take on the Pakistan Army in a regular war. Hence, the strategy is jointly to increase the cost of holding on to Balochistan and preventing the exploitation of its resources.

  Causes of the Insurgency

  The myriad causes of Baloch alienation have been noted in earlier chapters. These can be summarized briefly as follows.

  Historical: A basic cause for the Baloch to frequently break out in rebellion is the fact that, as Bizenjo put it so articulately in 1947, they did not want accession to Pakistan in the first place. The alienation engendered by the forced accession that many believe was illegal, since the Khan had no authority to do so, has been greatly enhanced by subsequent behaviour of the Pakistan state.

  Legacy of betrayal: The solemn promises made on the Koran that were broken by the Pakistan Army in 1950 and 1959; the indiscriminate use of air-power by the Pakistani and Iranian forces on Baloch villages, women and children in 1973–77; and the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 have all left a bitter legacy of hatred.

  Economic exploitation: Mounting anger over the exploitation of Balochistan’s resources to benefit Punjab, and the denial of the benefits of the natural gas and mineral resources to the Baloch in the form of increased royalty payments and their use for the benefit of the Baloch.

  Gwadar and CPEC: The denial of any meaningful role to the Baloch in decisions relating to the construction and administration of the Chinese-aided Gwadar port and CPEC.

  Fear of becoming a minority: The influx of a large number of Punjabis and other non-Baloch into the province to work in the construction of the Gwadar port raises fears of being converted into a minority.

  Administrative marginalization: The continuing discrimination against the Baloch in matters of recruitment to the armed forces and various civilian departments of the government, both at the federal and provincial levels.

  Army presence: The overbearing presence of the security forces and the establishment of more cantonments in the province that are perceived to facilitate the extraction of Balochistan’s resources.

  Perceptional differences: For the Baloch the current violence is a product of decades of exploitation that has reduced them to ‘slaves and third grade citizens’ in their own land. The Central government, on the other hand, labels the violence in Balochistan as the work of a small band of ‘miscreants’, led by a few militant tribal leaders. They, according to the government, do not represent the majority of the Baloch population and their efforts to undermine the development of Balochistan are purely aimed at maintaining the ‘backward’ feudal tribal system from which they garner their great power and wealth.59

  Control over own resources: The Baloch desire a greater say and less interference with their political and economic destiny, especially over resources like gas and mega projects like Gwadar.

  Timing: The above factors have combined with the province’s increased strategic significance due to the construction of Gwadar port and the CPEC to exponentially increase the efforts by the Central government to exert its authority inside Balochistan. This renewed interest in Balochistan, which has included an influx of foreign workers and an increased military presence, has ignited the smouldering belief among Baloch nationalists that the Central government seeks only to subjugate the Baloch people and exploit their resources for the benefit of the Central government. The result has been an increased sense of ‘colonialization’ on the part of the Baloch population that has spawned a violent backlash by Baloch militants.

  The Killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti

  For Musharraf, it was the seventy-nine-year-old Nawab Akbar Bugti who was behind the Baloch unrest. In an interview with Herald Akbar Bugti had said: ‘Now our options are clear: resist and die or die without resisting. The people have chosen the former … They are fighting for Baloch honour and for their motherland and its resources.’60 On 15 January 2006 Nawab Akbar Bugti told an audience at the Karachi Press Club’s Meet the Press programme over telephone that the Pakistani government is committing ‘genocide’ in Balochistan, adding, ‘As a war has been imposed on Baloch people, they have every right to defend themselves against the onslaught by the government forces.’61

  The army finally trapped Bugti in his mountain hideout in Kohlu district and killed him on 26 August 2006. It was his killing and the manner in which it was done that intensified the insurgency and brought the simmering alienation among the Baloch to the fore. Instead of crushing the insurgency, his killing made him a martyr and gave the insurgents an icon. The Newsline commented editorially that it was a cover-up of ludicrous proportions. It warned that the army needed to sort itself out in order to grasp the consequences of what was possibly about to hit them.62

  Bugti clearly had a premonition about what was coming. From the cave where he was hiding, he told Abida Hussain via satellite phone, ‘I have clocked nearly eighty years and it is time for me to go. And your Punjabi army is going to kill me, which will convert me into the spirit of liberated Balochistan. That would be a befitting end for me with no regrets.’63 Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir wrote in one of his articles that the last time he talked to Nawab Akbar Bugti on his satellite phone, Bugti had told him, ‘Your commando general will rest only after he martyrs me, but after my martyrdom he will be held responsible. So, now it’s up to you people to either choose Musharraf or Pakistan. The choice is yours.’64

  Bugti’s killing led to widespread violence in Balochistan, especially in Quetta. Vehicles and petrol pumps were burnt and roads were blocked. In Kalat a telephone exchange was set on fire. There was a total ‘wheel-jam’ strike in Balochistan on 28 August 2006.

  Bugti’s killing proved to be a seminal moment in Baloch history and a major mistake by Musharraf. The HRCP mission in 2011 noted that almost everyone that they met said that the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti had been the turning point in Balochistan and that it had led many Baloch to support the call for independence.65

  Calling Bugti’s killing a huge disaster as much for Balochistan as for Pakistan, National Party (NP) leader Abdul Hayee Baloch said that the Baloch ‘… have all been devastated by the magnitude of the crime the government had committed. If this is what they could do to him, just imagine what they are doing to ordinary Baloch men, women and children every day’. According to him, hundreds had been killed, thousands arrested and scores disappeared. ‘If this sort of barbarity does not constitute state terrorism, what does?’ His lament was that helicopter gunships were used to kill ‘a frail 80-year man’ whose ‘only fault was that he was struggling for his people’s rights’.66 According to Bugti’s son Jamil: ‘The dictator thought that by killing my father he would extinguish the whole movement. He has been proved wrong; the intensity of the insurgency has increased.’67

  In the wake of Bugti’s killing, the Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleman Daud, called a Grand Jirga of all tribal chiefs on 21 September 2006 in Kalat. Eighty-five tribal chiefs and around 300 ‘elders’ attended it. A declaration adopted called for an end to the army’s brutal military operation and spoke about the ‘colonial occupation of Baloch lands by Punjab in violation of the accord signed by the state of Kalat and the Government of Pakistan in 1948’. The jirga also rejected the mega development projects being promoted by the federal government in the province. Condemning Bugti’s killing, the jirga appealed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague against the ‘violation of ... territorial integrity, exploitation of Balochistan’s natural resources, denial of the Baloch right to the ownership of their resources and the military operation in the province’.68 While the ICJ has no jurisdiction to take up the petition, Baloch nationalists maintain that the jirga succeeded in its twin objectives: to raise the Baloch cause internationally and to unite Baloch tribes and factions.6
9 A sardar who participated said that armed BLA fighters had dominated the proceedings with calls for Balochistan’s independence. ‘It is these youth, and not the sardars, who are now leading the resistance.’ The hatred for Pakistan voiced at the jirga, he said, ‘would have left the intelligence agencies aghast’.70

  To operationalize the jirga’s declaration, the Khan of Kalat convened another jirga on 2 October 2006. This formed a ‘sovereign supreme council’ comprising the Khan himself and five other members. The council was mandated to approach the ICJ. In addition, the jirga also established a national council comprising the Baloch chiefs, political leaders, intellectuals, lawyers and students. This national council was to meet every six months to take stock of the problems facing the Baloch people.

  By killing Bugti, Gen. Musharraf earned the enmity of not just the Baloch rebels but the wider Baloch population, who may not have believed in taking up arms but were still frustrated with Islamabad for its failure to develop the province. He clearly underestimated the power of Baloch nationalism that had led to four wars with the Pakistan Army in the past.71 The increased violence pushed the Baloch far beyond their original demands for greater autonomy and recognition of their rights and towards an armed independence movement. Those who were calling for separation were mostly young, educated Baloch who no longer saw a future for themselves in Pakistan.

  While the insurgency got a major fillip, politically Bugti’s party, the Jamhoori Watan Party, went into decline and suffered several splits. Bugti’s relatives like Mir Ghulam Haider Khan Bugti and Haji Juma Khan Bugti went their own way, enticed undoubtedly by offers from the government. These problems reduced the JWP to a shadow of the political force it was under Akbar Bugti.

  Current Insurgency

  Sporadic incidents of violence had taken place in Balochistan from the late 1990s. For example, insurgents had triggered a series of bomb blasts at Chagai, the testing site of Pakistan’s nuclear device, on 28 May 1998. As a result, the main railway lines between Quetta and the rest of Pakistan were disrupted at two points. In addition, there were seven blasts in Quetta as well as blasts in Mastung, Khuzdar, Sui and Kohlu on May 28-29. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) that seemed to have re-emerged after the 1970s claimed responsibility for the attacks and said in a statement: ‘These attacks were to remind Punjabi Pakistanis that we the sons of the soil will not forget the great injustices and especially the nuclear test in the heart of our Fatherland Balochistan... We will avenge and free our country from Pakistani slavery.’72

  In July 2000 there were three bomb explosions on the same day in Quetta, including one in the cantonment area that killed over half-a-dozen soldiers.73 The Quetta cantonment came under rocket attacks from the surrounding hills and on one particular occasion, the roof of an empty classroom of the Command and Staff College collapsed after taking a direct rocket hit.74

  What gave these sporadic and intermittent incidents of violence a certain direction was what the Baloch perceived as a grave provocation. This was the 2001 arrest of Khair Bakhsh Marri on the murder charges of a high court judge. The Baloch nationalists perceived this as a deliberate state policy of humiliating respected Baloch leaders and attacking their honour and dignity. This incident is perceived by many Baloch to be the turning point of Baloch resistance after a pause of two decades.75 Not surprisingly, between 2001 and 2002 there were nearly two dozen rocket attacks directed at the gas infrastructure. Consequently, there were major disruptions in the supply of gas to Punjab causing hardship to domestic consumers as also inflicting a heavy cost on industry and the gas companies. One report estimated that suspension of gas from Sui (which at that time was supplying 45 per cent of the total gas used in Pakistan) cost the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd a daily loss of Rs 60 million.76

  Between 2002 and 2004 intermittent attacks continued. During 2004 there were 626 rocket attacks, of which 379 attacks targeted the Sui gas fields while others targeted power pylons and railway tracks. In addition, there were 122 bomb explosions on the gas pipeline.77 The BLA launched a massive attack in 2004 that damaged the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) property and Sui area in Pakistan. A peace deal was then brokered with the help of Shujaat Hussain, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid) (PML-Q). In August 2004 the BLA ambushed an army van in Khuzdar killing six soldiers. A day later, militants attacked the convoy of the chief minister in Khuzdar killing two soldiers. On Pakistan’s Independence Day in 2004, the BLA carried out ten coordinated bomb blasts in Quetta. Though these were low-intensity bombs and did not cause casualties, the message of the militants was obvious.78

  In December 2004 the Pakistan government-owned company Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited (OGDCL) was granted a licence for gas exploration in Balochistan. The area they wished to explore was the Kohlu district that belonged to the Bugti tribe who were not offered any part of the substantial revenue that would arise from the discovery. It was estimated that there was as much as 22 trillion cubic feet of gas in that area, which would fetch the company billions of dollars over the years. Nawab Akbar Bugti opposed the exploration without any promise of adequate compensation. Several Baloch leaders including Sardar Attaullah Mengal, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri and Nawab Khan Bugti initiated talks with the military regime in an effort to diffuse mounting tensions. But Musharraf had other plans. Nothing would deter him and the army to militarily achieve their ends in Balochistan.

  To counter opposition from the Baloch tribes, Gen. Musharraf announced the setting up of more cantonments and military posts in Balochistan. By the beginning of 2005 the Pakistan Army was itching for action against the Baloch, particular the Bugti tribesmen. As Baloch opposition mounted, Gen. Musharraf issued his famous warning: ‘Don’t push us. It isn’t the 1970s when you can hit and run and hide in the mountains. This time you won’t even know what hit you.’79 This was much like what Ayub Khan had threatened in the 1960s.

  Against such a backdrop and the accompanying incidents of violence in 2003-04, the situation erupted on 2 January 2005 due to the rape of Dr Shazia Khalid, a lady doctor working at Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) at Sui. Nawab Akbar Bugti accused an army officer, Captain Emad, of the offence. The PPL and the government tried to cover up the incident. The captain was allowed to give a lengthy statement on Pakistan Television, presenting his side of the story, and President Musharraf publicly vouched for the captain’s innocence.

  Failure of the government to bring the guilty to book sparked attacks on the Sui gas fields by Baloch tribesmen for whom a crime like rape was only punishable with death. Hundreds of rockets and mortar shells were fired and there was a heavy gun battle. According to Pakistan government sources, the rebels fired 14,000 rounds of small arms, 436 mortars and sixty rockets in four days of fighting. Large-scale damage was inflicted on the property of the PPL; on 18 January 2005 a major attack disrupted Sui’s output.

  In the aftermath of the attack, the government rushed hundreds of troops to the area. At least eight people died in the violence, which caused a production loss of more than 43,000 tonnes of urea and a daily electricity shortfall of about 470 megawatts.80 Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd subsequently halted natural gas supplies to 118 power plants in Lahore–Sheikhupura, Bhai Phero and Gujranwala regions, forcing textile mills to halt their operations for an indefinite period. A Sui Northern Gas Pipelines official, however, claimed that the shut-off was because of adverse weather conditions.

  Violence continued throughout 2005. According to the federal government’s tally, in 2005 there were more than 275 rocket attacks on government installations, seventeen bombings and eight attacks on gas pipelines.81 According to the Dawn newspaper, there were at least 261 bomb blasts and 167 rocket attacks in 2005, while Baloch militants—prominently the Balochistan Liberation Army—have made claims that there were five times those numbers.82

  A major development took place in December 2005 when Baloch militants rocketed a meeting attended by President Musharraf in Kohlu. A few days later, rockets were fi
red at a helicopter carrying the commander of the Frontier Corps, Balochistan. By mid-December press reports indicated that Pakistani military and paramilitary forces were engaged in ‘a full-scale military campaign’ against militant Baloch tribesmen. The government played down the fighting and denied that the Pakistani Army was even deployed in Baluchistan, saying that it was merely using the Frontier Corps to run a police operation to stem violence. However, according to Carlotta Gall, ‘One visit makes it clear that, despite official denials, the government is waging a full-scale military campaign here.… During a 24-hour trek on camel, horse and foot across the rugged, stony terrain in early March, the fighting was plain to see. Military jets and surveillance planes flew over the area, and long-range artillery lighted up the distant night sky.’83

  If, as the government claimed, the conflict prior to 2005 was confined to only 7 per cent of the area of Balochistan (parts of Kohlu and Dera Bugti districts), from 2006 onwards it now engulfed more than half the area of the province.84 In January 2006, the BLA targeted railway links in Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab. On 5 January the army had to be deployed at Dera Ghazi Khan airport after an abortive attempt on an electricity pylon. In Jacobabad in Sindh, which also houses a significant Baloch population, there were a series of attacks on gas pipelines.85

  In 2009, 792 attacks resulting in 386 deaths were recorded; approximately 92 per cent of the attacks were linked to Baloch nationalist militants. Violence increased in 2010, with 730 attacks carried out resulting in 600 deaths. The insurgents were even able to attack the main gas pipeline in the heart of Punjab near Pattoki, thereby indicating that the fire ignited in Balochistan was spreading. During 2006–10 there were more than 1,600 casualties in a total of 1,850 incidents—nearly 50 per cent civilians, 23 per cent militants and 22 per cent security forces.